


Strangers No More

by linndechir



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: M/M, brief mention of someone dying in childbirth, brief mentions of Aegon/Visenya and Aegon/Rhaenys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 11:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2771216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years of having Orys by his side, it's strange to remember that there was ever a time when they weren't brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers No More

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallencrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/gifts).



> Written for round 11 of [got_exchange](http://got-exchange.livejournal.com) on Livejournal. The prompt was _Aegon/Orys, they were strangers once_.

He'd first seen Orys near one of the barracks on Dragonstone, a giant towering over three other men in a sparring fight that barely seemed to cost him any effort. A sword rested lightly in his right hand – not even his favoured weapon, as Aegon would find out much later –, the shield on his left arm was as much a weapon as the blade, and even against three skilled knights Orys looked like a lioness indulgently playing with her cubs, swatting them aside with a fraction of his strength and laughing as he did so.

 

Not much later, Orys had approached him, bold as a lioness still, as if any bastard soldier would walk up to his lord and look him in the eye, never flinching, never hesitating. It was that insolence alone that made Aegon stop in his stride.

He'd asked him for his name.

_Orys._

Just that, no last name of his own, nor one of the bastard names so common in Westeros. Aegon had asked him about that, too.

_I'm the son of a dragon. I won't call myself anything less._

 

It should not have been a shock to find himself face to face with his bastard brother. Aegon had never been naive, not even as a boy. He'd known that his father had found comfort in the arms of many women, after sweet, gentle Rhaenys had come into the world in a torrent of blood and pain more befitting of her sister – and maybe even before that, though Orys at least looked younger than Aegon. Up close there was still a lankiness to his long limbs, as if he had not quite grown into his strength yet.

And Aegon had sometimes seen children, in the streets and at court, with hair as silver as his own and eyes in a blue that gleamed with just a hint of red in the right light. Descendants of his father or his father's father, he neither knew nor cared, for none of them would ever have been bold enough to approach him and claim to be his _brother_.

 

The nights were never truly silent in the Red Keep – there was always a whisper of voices from somewhere below, and the whisper of the sea and of the wind in the spires. It sounded much like Dragonstone, much like home. Sleep had never come easily to Aegon and it always left him faster than it found him; the sky was still black when he sat up. Orys barely stirred beside him – he slept like death itself, his body so still, his breath so quiet that Aegon would have worried if he hadn't known him so well. 

He ran his fingers over Orys' jaw, his beard black and thick except where an ugly scar on his cheek cut through it, where the Storm King's axe had almost taken Orys' head off. It must have been the only time in Orys' life that someone had truly challenged him.

 

He should have sent him away that first time Orys had approached him. He'd been on his way to Balerion, the dragon rider's whip light in his hand, and it could have easily been a whip lash that marked Orys' cheek forever. But looking at this insolent bastard boy was like looking into a mirror, seeing his own face under a tangle of midnight black hair – not the dark brown that tried to pass itself for black North of Dorne, but a black as deep as Aegon's armour –, and eyes peered at him in a blue so piercing that despite their ordinary colour, they struck Aegon as much as the deep violet of his sisters' eyes.

He'd taken Orys with him, on a whim. 

_If you're a dragon's son, you won't be afraid to meet one up close._

It had been cruel of him, he knew. Even a full-blooded Targaryen knew better than to approach a stranger's dragon, and Balerion could have terrified Aegon himself if Aegon had known what fear was. But Orys only laughed – laughter came so easily to him, as if he'd taken it upon himself to laugh for both of them – and followed him, his steps as unerring as Aegon's, his eyes as fearless. He had to be as mad as he was brave, but Aegon knew better than anyone that madness was merely the word lesser men used for those whose greatness they could not understand.

 

Aegon hadn't wanted him dead – a bit of insolence was no reason to waste a good soldier, and Aegon disliked the inefficiency that had kept his family confined to a rock in the sea for generations – so he stayed nearby when they approached Balerion's cave, ready to interfere. He needn't have worried. Balerion, so territorial, so possessive of what was his, barely moved his gargantuan body when they approached. He only lifted his head to greet them, red eyes half as large as the men looking into them, and the expression on Orys' face was one of awe without any fear. He touched a scale on Balerion's snout as casually as he would have touched a horse, fingertips unbothered by the heat. 

Balerion yawned, displaying teeth like bastard swords, and curled up again without paying them further attention.

It only occurred to Aegon later that Orys smelt just like him.

 

Two weeks after he'd greeted Balerion like an old friend, Orys had found Aegon by the stony beach and sat down next to him as if he'd been invited. Aegon realised to his surprise that Orys' lack of deference did nothing to insult him. It was not insolence he saw in those blue eyes – blue like the ocean in the midday sun after it had raged all night – but merely a complete lack of fear.

Aegon touched Orys' cheek with the back of his hand, the thick beard covering skin that had been smooth until recently, then let his fingers sneak up to the hair Orys had shorn down to barely a finger's breadth. It saddened him more than he expected to see Orys hide their resemblance.

_What's this?_

_I'm not the man I was before I met you, brother._

He said _brother_ like he had any right to the word, and for all the fondness Aegon found in himself for him, he pulled back his hand and got up. He held Orys in too high a regard to make this easy for him.

_You haven't earned that word yet._

 

He earned it on the shores and fields of Westeros, clad in black leather and steel like a plainer shadow of his brother's black and rubied glory, a large axe in his hand that made men wonder what he needed an armour for when barely an enemy ever got a chance to strike at him.

Aegon saw him from Balerion's back, watched him wade through men like he'd wade through a storm, and as many men fled from him as fell beneath his axe.

He wasn't a lioness then, playing with her cubs, but a dragon burning his enemies.

 

The night after the landing he called Orys to his tent, a smaller one than the one his sisters shared. A conqueror needed no luxury but the Valyrian steel in his hand and the dragon between his legs. Orys' eyes were bright and wild from the day's battles, and the candle light almost gave them a purple glow – or maybe it was the blood in his beard playing tricks on Aegon's eyes.

He knew Orys took boys to his bed – and boys only, as far as he knew, sixteen or seventeen, with soft cheeks and softer lips, but it didn't matter what Orys usually liked. This wasn't something Aegon ever planned to ask for; it was his to take. Orys had dropped to his knees a moment after he had come in – somewhere in the last months of planning the invasion together his cockiness had mingled with a deep admiration, a devotion that was no less genuine for all that he stubbornly insisted on calling his lord, his king, by his first name.

Warm lips against Aegon's hand, the slightest scratch of his beard, and Aegon let out a soft sigh. He'd only ever shared his sisters' bed, Visenya's out of duty, Rhaenys' for pleasure, but they were his siblings in ways that Orys was not: he'd grown up with them, always knowing that they were his as much as he was theirs, and touching them had never filled him with the same rush he felt on Balerion's back and under Orys' hands. He lifted Orys' chin with gentle fingers, knowing that he could demand anything of him and that it would not only by given willingly, but gladly.

_Undress, brother. Join me._

The cot in the tent was too small for the both of them, but neither noticed as they curled into each other like a dragon curled around itself, their bodies mirrors that forgot where one began and the other ended. _Brother_ , Orys whispered into his skin, and Aegon let the word seep into him like the heat of his brother's skin.

 

“You're brooding. Again.”

Aegon flinched a little, out of surprise rather than guilt, at his brother's voice, thick with sleep even as he opened his eyes in the dark. Orys sat up slowly and shifted until he sat behind Aegon, arms folding themselves around his body, face buried against his shoulder.

“Tell me it isn't dawn yet.”

“If it was dawn already, you'd have your face buried in the pillow and refuse to move until midday,” Aegon replied, and he felt the soft rumble of laughter in Orys' chest where it was pressed against his back, even as the sound was muffled against his skin. Orys' hands were hot on his skin where the night air had cooled it, rubbing warmth back into his body, finding every bit of soft skin, every spot that sent shudders through Aegon's body – each caress born out of years of shared intimacy. Aegon's eyes closed; he sank back against his brother and let Orys pull him back down into his embrace.

Sleep never came as easily to Aegon as it did to his brother, but no one else could help him sleep like Orys could, and as he drifted off, his head on Orys' chest, his fingers curled around the back of his neck, it was hard to remember that his brother had ever been a stranger.


End file.
